affection
To most people, you are entirely unremarkable. Unfortunately for you, Dex isn’t most people.
Originally a multichapter story turned into a oneshot - Content warnings: stalking, emotional manipulation, some brief sexual content, 18+ only.
You’re a wreck.
You’re a wreck, and he wants to wrap his arms around you and never let you go. He would absorb you if he could, make you part of himself. Absolve you of your pain, conjoin it with his own and eradicate it altogether. But he knows he can’t. Not now. Not yet. Not ever, if he messes this up.
He pushes the thought away. He won’t mess it up. He can’t.
You arrive at the 24-hour diner late into the evening, opting to dine alone. It’s late enough that the restaurant has become fairly desolate, leaving you to cry alone in peace. At least, you think you’re alone.
Dex knows better.
He catches you off guard. He doesn’t mean to, but he does. He approaches you from his spot at the front counter with a chipped white mug in his hands. As he sets it down in front of you, he is shaking so hard that a little hot chocolate spills out onto the table. You stare up at him, eyeing him curiously. Keyword: stare. You’re staring at him. You’re looking at him, seeing him for—as far as you are aware—the very first time. It feels warm under your gaze. Comfortable, like being bathed in sunlight. The shaking ceases. All that nervous anticipation, that buildup to reuniting with you has faded away in an instant. He’s just happy to be there. He is happy you’re looking, happy you’re seeing.
You may not recognize him, but you see him.
Finally.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t order this.”
Sir. So formal. Polite. Distant. He’s a stranger to you, and you won’t let him forget it.
“No. No, you didn’t,” he says simply.
You pause. “I’m sorry—” Another apology. Why? You’re not like him. You don’t have anything to apologize for. “—I don’t understand.”
“You just looked like you could use one, is all,” he says, more than happy to clear things up for you. He motions towards the empty spot at the booth across from you. “May I?”
Your eyes widen in surprise, but you nod. “Oh, um. Sure. By all means.”
Your voice is stuffy, congested from all the crying. You wipe your eyes, try to regain your composure, but it’s no use. He wants to tell you that he already knows what’s going on here, that it’s too late, but you’re smart. There’s no need. The wheels are turning. You’re putting it all together, he can tell.
He is not wearing a uniform. He clearly doesn’t work there. He is a patron, like you. And yet, he comes bearing gifts. He brought you a drink. On the surface, it is just what it looks like: a stranger doing a small act of kindness for another, much more visibly distressed stranger. In other words, he’s being nice. You’re crying, and this stranger has decided to be nice to you.
Your eyes light up in understanding, and you let out a laugh. It’s pitiful, but it’s there. You mean it. He knows what kind of laugh it is. He has let out a laugh like that himself, many, many times. Grim. Self-deprecating. You’re laughing at yourself, at how absurd it is that you’re crying in public, that a stranger has taken pity on you.
He wishes he could just come right out and say it. It’s not pity. It’s an offering, in hopes of an exchange. An opportunity for a give and take. Not an act of pity. Not even empathy, as he was taught. An act of affection.
Affection.
There’s a difference.
He hopes you know that it’s not absurd, that you’re not absurd. You’re not something to laugh at. You’re not. You know that, don’t you? He wishes you knew that. You have more than enough reasons to cry, and they’re all very legitimate.
He sits down across from you, making himself comfortable.
“Thank you.” You raise your mug slightly, then take a sip, smiling meekly at him. “Cheers.”
He nods at you. “Of course. Rough night?”
“Oh, you have no idea,” you chuckle, wiping your eyes once more. “Thanks. Again. This is good.”
“You want to talk about it?”
You eye him carefully. You don’t say anything quite yet, but you’ve made yourself loud and clear: you’re trying to discern whether he’s a safe person to talk to or not. And how would you know that, having only exchanged just a few words? You’re hesitant.
As much as he wants you to let him in—as long as he’s been waiting for an opportunity like this to strike, as excited as he is to be talking with you, as much as he’s dying to see you open up—your tentativeness brings him a sense of relief. He actually likes this about you. You’re cautious. Careful. You don’t let just anyone in, and you shouldn’t. You can’t trust just anybody, and he’s glad you know that. He’s glad you take your life seriously.
“It’s just…life isn’t easy for me right now, I guess.”
His gaze softens, as if this was news to him, as if he didn’t already know. But he knew. He knew all too well.
“You must be going through a lot,” he says, studying you carefully.
Your eyes tear up at his words. “Yeah,” you chuckle. “It would help if I could remember any of it.”
And there it was.
It would help if I could remember any of it.
You had worked together once, before your accident. That was where you first caught his attention, at the crisis call center. You were just starting to get to know one another when you disappeared one day, never to return.
But the thing was, Dex had already been following you. He had been from the moment you met, on your first day of work. And so, he simply continued his research.
You had gotten into an awful car accident, resulting in some pretty serious physical injuries, and to top it all off, memory loss. You didn’t remember your job at the crisis center, your life in the city, most of your friends.
You didn’t remember him.
It made him angry at first. He adored you. How could you not remember him?
He placed himself in your path over and over again, only to be rendered invisible.
But not today.
As he stares at you, he sees you. Really sees you. He always has. You’re beautiful, even when you cry. He wonders if you have any idea.
It confuses him, how to most people, someone like you is entirely unremarkable. To most people, you inhabit this world right alongside everyone else. A coworker, an acquaintance, a stranger on the street. Sometimes a friend. To most people, you are just sort of there. You blend into the crowd, just like everyone else. And so, it’s safe to say that to most people, you are entirely unremarkable.
Well. Most people are idiots.
But Dex?
Dex views the world differently than most people.
Dex views you differently than most people.
And as he stares at you from across the table—keyword: stare—he can’t help but feel like you view him differently than most people, too.
You must.
You accepted his kind little gesture, his act of affection. An offering, in hopes of an exchange. An opportunity for a give and take.
It would help if I could remember any of it.
Those simple words would be the beginning of your end.
You had opened the door, and he was prepared to walk right through it.
-
You balk at the idea at first.
You’re not prepared to accept it, the idea that you had dated, been together. Dex can’t help but wonder if some part of you knows he’s lying, given how difficult the concept is for you to grasp.
“So you’re saying I know you?” you ask, fidgeting in your seat. You trace the outside of your mug with your fingertips, back and forth. Back and forth. You’re nervous. Antsy. You hadn’t been expecting this. As far as you were aware, Dex was a complete and total stranger.
“Yes. You know me very well, actually.”
“And you’re saying we were a thing?”
He smirks at you, confident. Self-assured. Convincing. “Oh, we were very much a thing.”
You study him, skeptical. “For how long?”
He shrugs. “A few months, for as long as you worked at the crisis hotline. We started dating shortly after you got hired. Then you had your accident, and I didn’t see you anymore. I was pretty devastated when I found out you didn’t remember me, to be honest.”
“How do you know about my accident, if I disappeared?”
“Your mother called me and told me.”
He can tell that one hit you like a punch to the gut. You hadn’t been expecting that, either. “You knew my mother?”
He nods.
“But my mother is dead.”
“We had met a handful of times before. We got along well. She got in touch with me shortly before she died,” he says. “…which I’m deeply sorry about, by the way. That must’ve been so hard on you, losing your memory and then losing someone so important to you.”
Your mother was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, and she had been on a slow, painful decline ever since. She passed away not long after your accident. Dex understood that type of loss, that type of pain, he really did. He wanted to shield you from it, hide you away from its impact, but there was nothing he could do. They had never actually spoken, of course. Your mother had never once come into contact with Dex, she had no idea who he was, but there was no way for you to know that.
“How did you know my mother died?”
“I saw one of your family members post about it on Instagram. We’re not friends on there anymore, though. I deactivated my account.”
“So why didn’t you reach out to me if we were so close, like you say? Didn’t you…well, didn’t you miss me?”
“Of course,” he says, his gaze softening. “Very much so, but your first question is a difficult one to answer. I didn’t want to scare you, or overwhelm you. I mean, how is someone supposed to react to that kind of information? What was I supposed to say—hey, you don’t remember me, but we were in love once. Would you like to pick up where we left off?—it sounds ridiculous. So I kept my distance. I didn’t want to disrupt your life.”
Your eyes widen at his words. In love.
Uh oh. Talk about not wanting to scare you off.
“So we were pretty serious, then?”
He sighs. “I guess you could say that, yeah. You not being part of my life anymore, it left this…void. The first few weeks after you left, it felt like someone I loved died, but you were right within reach. That was the most painful part. It was torture.”
You frown, your brow furrowing. Left probably wasn’t the best choice of words. It placed a certain level of responsibility on you. The car accident hadn’t been your fault, your memory loss wasn’t your doing. But he resented you for it, even still. How can you not remember him? How can you not recall the connection you’d had, even just as coworkers?
“You could’ve told me, Dex. I wouldn’t have freaked out.”
“You don’t know that,” he says. “Hell, you don’t even remember my first name.”
“Your name’s not Dexter?”
He shakes his head. “Ben. Dex comes from my last name. Poindexter, but everyone just calls me Dex. It’s always been that way.”
He is particularly grateful that your phone had broken during the accident, and that there is no way for you to recover his texts. Had it not shattered to pieces, you would find text messages between what was clearly two coworkers, friendly but distant. Detached. The opposite of how he wanted to be with you, of how he wanted to appear. He wouldn’t be able to maintain the illusion that you had, in fact, been a couple. A deeply connected one, at that.
“Did you somehow know that I would be here tonight?” you ask, nervously flicking your mug a few times.
Unfortunately, he can tell that you can tell something is off. You’re smart, perceptive. Always have been. And he’s making you nervous. Why is he making you nervous? It strikes him, what his mother once said about him being off-putting, even as a child. What was wrong with him, exactly? He’s not sure he’ll ever truly know. He just knows the last thing he wants to do is scare you. The last thing he wants is to create distance. He has to do this right, he has to make this work in his favor.
“I swear to you, on my life this is pure coincidence. I have no way of knowing where you are, or what you’re up to.”
A lie. A big one. From the moment you’d met, wherever you went was where Dex followed. There was something about you, bold and unapologetic in your kindness. You were caring, generous, approachable. Everything he aspired to be, but could never quite access.
But you can change him, you can fix him. He knows you can. You just have to invest in him as much as he invests in you, which he recognizes is a tall order. But he believes he can get you there if he plays his cards right.
He can be lovable. He is capable of love and being loved in return, right? That was what Dr. Mercer had said, anyway.
He wonders how he can impress you, how he can win you over. You won’t care about his accolades, his work history. He knows that much about you. He’s handsome, sure, but you’re not shallow. You won’t care about that, either.
“I count myself lucky that I got to see you tonight. I’m sorry if this was jarring for you. It’s just…when I saw you, I couldn’t contain it anymore,” he says, folding and unfolding his hands.
You’re tapping your foot anxiously, sitting in awkward silence until he puts a hand on your thigh to halt you, to ground you. His eyes widen, as do yours, and he quickly pulls away. He can’t believe he just did that. It had been so long since you’d last seen him, really seen him. He just needed to be close.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. He’s stumbling over his words as he continues to apologize. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m just so used to—”
“It’s okay,” you say, pulling your phone from your pocket. You offer it to him. He quirks an eyebrow. “Here, so you can put your name in my contacts. I think we should talk about this more, maybe when I’m not so…” You motion towards yourself, visibly exhausted. You were all red, puffy eyes and messy hair.
“When you’re not such an open wound.”
You stare at him for a moment, surprised. It’s a very odd way to put it, he knows that, but it’s true. It hits you where it hurts. It resonates.
“Yeah. Um, yeah. Exactly.”
His heart flutters in his chest as he types his number into your phone. The knots in his stomach come undone. The first step into your new life.
It’s really happening.
-
It’s a waiting game, and Dex isn’t very good at it. You take your time reaching out, and when you finally do, he’s on the verge of snapping. He can’t help but feel a little hurt. Agitated. Angry, even. What has taken you so long?
He gets it, though.
You’re vulnerable. An open wound, like he said. That much is true. Utterly depleted from the death of your mother and your recent memory loss, he knows adding new people to your life probably isn’t an easy concept for you to grapple with. He has effectively overwhelmed you.
But even so, you’re willing. Open to it, open to him. You wouldn’t have exchanged phone numbers with him if you weren’t. Some part of you must know how special you are to him, how special you are to each other. You can feel it, even through the fog.
You send him a text. Short but sweet.
Hey, how have you been?
How has he been? Good question. He decides to be honest. He’s already done his fair share of lying. He might as well tell the truth for once.
I’ve been better. You?
Oh, you know. I’m here.
He chuckles at that. You sure are. He takes a few minutes to respond, trying to figure out the best way to phrase what he wants to say.
Would you want to meet up sometime soon?
Soon.
He wonders if that comes across as too eager. A part of him—the more reckless, impulsive part of himself, the part of himself he would prefer you not know about—doesn’t care. It’s not really a matter of want anymore. He needs to see you. Yesterday. Today. Now.
Soon.
You take a while to reply. He wracks his brain, internally panicking. He could’ve approached this differently, could’ve said something else. His mother told him he was “too much” once, when he was just a child. “Too intense, too needy, too emotional.” All of this in addition to being “off-putting.”
God, he hated her.
He thanked all that was holy for Dr. Mercer, and now she was gone.
You knew what it was like to be alone, too. That was just one of the reasons why he loved you so much. You shared the same kind of pain. You didn’t just feel it, you lived it.
You understood.
His heart skips a beat as a new message pops up on his screen.
Sure (: what did you have in mind?
It’s remarkable how easily you can lift his spirits.
-
Weeks go by.
You’ve gotten comfortable with him, comfortable enough that you’ve agreed to come over to his place after a night out. Comfortable enough that you’ve kissed him, even. You believe his lies, every last one of them. You believe his stories about the day you met, your first date, your first kiss. You absorb everything like a sponge. At first, he’s not quite sure why. A part of him wonders if you’re that gullible, or if you’re just desperate not to be alone in the world—almost as desperate as he is.
Either way, you trust him, and he loves you for it.
Another part of him completely gets why you believe him. He seems to know an awful lot about you, after all. It’s only logical. Due to his diligent research, he knows things about you that extend past the memory loss, things about yourself that you can recall vividly, things that only you would know. Things you must’ve told him when you were together, right? How else would he know about them?
How else would he know?
You collapse onto his bed, exhausted after a long shift at work (you work at a restaurant now, a far cry from your job at the crisis center) and a few drinks. You’re tired tonight, he can tell. But you made time for him. That means something. You burrow yourself beneath his blankets like you belong there, because you do. He stares at you for a moment in what can only be described as a state of awe.
“What’s wrong?” you ask.
He pauses, taking in the moment. You, with your messy hair and tired, raspy voice. Your undereye circles. Your silk button-up blouse, slightly wrinkled, tucked into your jeans.
He smiles at you.
“Absolutely nothing.”
He tosses one of his t-shirts at you. You leave the room to go put it on, quickly shedding your jeans.
He wants you to be comfortable.
He gets into bed and grabs hold of you, maneuvering you so your back is touching his chest. He wraps his arms around you like a vice. Static. Immovable. His legs entangle with yours, keeping you still, keeping you there. He reaches up and shuts off the light. With you, there is never enough time. The hours tick by like minutes as you lie there, still as a stone.
Dex, on the other hand, can’t stop moving.
He brushes his fingers through your hair, runs his fingertips along your waist, kisses your neck. He’s restless, excited. Reverent. He can’t believe that you’re there, you’re actually there. The room is pitch black but you’re curled up with him like a cat on a windowsill, basking in the sunlight. Safe. Warm. Happy.
“Dex?”
He ignores you, leaving a trail of kisses along your cheek.
“Dex?” you repeat.
“Hm?”
“Did we…when we were dating, did we ever…”
He peers down at you, observing you as carefully as he can in the dark. He runs his hand along your arm. He knows what you’re asking, and for once, he’s not sure how to answer. What’s the right thing to say in a situation like this? He’s been incredibly manipulative with you, he can admit that to himself. But he doesn’t want to hurt you, not really. What’s the best way to approach this without causing further harm?
“Dex?”
He figures he’ll tell you the thing that will cause you the least anxiety possible. He doesn’t want to make you even more uncomfortable than you already probably are, doesn’t want you to feel like he knows even more than he already does. Besides, he knows he has the upper hand here. He’s got nothing to prove.
“No,” he concedes.
You’re quiet for a few moments.
“No?”
“No, we um. We never slept together. We were only dating for a few months, and you wanted to take things slow.”
You sigh in relief, satisfied with that answer. He smiles to himself.
“What?” he asks.
“It’s just…that really takes the pressure off, you know? I…I can’t explain why, I just…”
He leans in to kiss you, and you kiss him back. His head swims.
You make him feel like he’s floating sometimes.
“You don’t need to explain. You’re alright,” he says. “Everything’s alright.”
-
“I’m sorry, Dex. I have to go.”
He is standing in his kitchen, sunlight streaming in through the windows. His posture is stiff, his arms crossed. He doesn’t like this. Not at all. Your words hit him with a wave of disappointment, frustration. This morning was supposed to go differently—a lot differently. You were supposed to wake up in his arms, laze around, stay for breakfast. Maybe go for a walk in the park.
You weren’t supposed to leave.
“So you’re ditching me?” he asks, wrapping his arms around you from behind. He leans down to kiss your neck. You laugh.
“You have to let me go, Dex,” you say. “I have work.”
His hold tightens around you, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
You’re lying to him. Lying.
Right to his face.
The sudden rush of anger catches him off guard. Anger isn’t even the right word. Rage is more like it, bubbling up beneath the surface like lava. The words are out before he can even think, before he can process how they’ll hit you. It’s a knee jerk reaction. He needs you to know that he knows you’re bullshitting.
“You don’t have work today.”
Your eyes widen. He feels an instant rush of guilt when he sees the stunned look on your face. No. No. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
“I’m sorry?”
He backtracks, scrambles to make things better, to make things right. “You mentioned it yesterday, during dinner. You said today’s your day off. You were going to do some shopping.”
“I never…I said that?”
“How else would I know?”
You stare at one another in silence for a few moments before you extract yourself from his hold, gathering your purse and jacket. He follows quickly behind, pulling you into a bear hug before you can walk away.
He’s panicking.
How can he spin this? You had one too many drinks? Your memory still isn’t in working order yet?
“Dex, come on,” you mumble into his shoulder. “Baby…”
Baby.
He doesn’t have to lie. You believe him.
He breathes a sigh of relief. You’re still attempting to push him away, but he’s got you wrapped up tight. He places a hand on the back of your head, leaning down so his lips are right next to your ear.
“I’ll come see you after work,” you say, placating him.
You’re still lying. Why are you lying?
“But you don’t have work today.”
“I got asked to cover a shift.”
“When?”
“This morning. My boss texted me.”
He is right on the verge of asking to see your phone, but he decides against it. He doesn’t want to risk upsetting you, not when he’s worked so hard to get close to you. But why are you lying? Where are you going without him?
“I’ll call you, okay?”
His heart drops as you leave—as he allows you to leave.
Allows.
For now.
-
You piece things together. Slowly at first, then all at once.
You’re not sure what sparks it, or when, or how. Memory is funny like that. You nearly gasp as you recall it: your old iCloud email and password. It’s a big deal, recovering a memory like this. Your email and password is a key to more memories, memories you thought you’d lost forever. You hold your breath as you type it into your phone, crossing your fingers that your mind hasn’t failed you. And evidently, it hasn’t.
You’re able to recover all of your old photos, texts, your contact list, everything. You feel your eyes well up with tears as you scroll through countless texts with your friends, some of which you hadn’t seen since your accident. Their last few messages to you bring you a profound sense of sadness. There are lots of “where are you”s and “are you okay”s. You find messages from your mother, which send you reeling. Your camera roll, on the other hand, makes you laugh, especially the folder of deleted photos full of botched selfies. But as you continue to explore, a sinking feeling begins to plague you.
Where the hell was Dex in all of this?
If Dex was really your boyfriend, where were all of his messages? And where were your photos together? You type his name into the search bar under your texts. Some messages do come up, but they aren’t exactly what you might expect. They were friendly, sure, but they were almost too polite. They were also few and far between, spaced out over the course of several months. The kind of messages you’d send an acquaintance. A coworker, which he was.
Not your loving boyfriend.
You’re at Dex’s apartment, spending the night yet again. It’s late at night, or early in the morning depending on how you look at it. You’re curled up on his couch with a fluffy white blanket, quietly scrolling on your phone, sifting through years worth of memories. You have yet to tell Dex about your findings, or lack thereof. For once, your boyfriend is the one who’s sound asleep, resting in the bedroom. You are wide awake.
Sleeping with Dex for the first time had left you feeling antsy.
Wired. Anxious.
In truth, you were still a little shaken from the experience, even hours later. It wasn’t bad—far from it, actually. Just…
Intense.
You weren’t quite sure how he managed to handle you like glass, merge his soul with yours and steal your soul from your body at the same time.
He rushes into the room before you can think too critically into it. He’s wide eyed and panicked, but when he sees you on the couch, all the tension leaves his posture. You give him a little wave. He smiles. A soft smile, a relieved smile. He walks over and collapses on top of you, making you laugh.
“Hi, Ben.”
“Hi.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says, lifting his head to look up at you. “Just…don’t scare me like that again.” He reaches up and grabs hold of your hand. He leans down and kisses your knuckles, then looks up at you. “Okay?”
You nod. “Okay.”
-
Over the course of the next few weeks, flashes of memory rattle your brain, rattle you.
You’re not sure what happened but your nervous system has gone into overdrive, and something has shaken loose. It’s like a dam has broken, like a light switch has been flipped on. Your mind is suddenly being flooded with words and people and places and things, everything leading up to your accident.
This particular realization doesn’t hit you like a truck, however. It’s more like a slow poison, making its way through your bloodstream as your memory grows stronger and stronger. You feel it before you truly know it, and even then, you have no idea how to react.
He really was just your coworker. That was it.
He was never your boyfriend.
You feel the urge to confront him. To scream and yell, to argue. To tell him there’s something deeply wrong with him, to try and trick youinto a relationship like that. You want to tell him that he’s broken, that he’s sick and obsessed, that what he’s done is unforgivable. You want to ask him if he’s been following you. But you also have a sinking feeling you’re in over your head. You don’t really know who you’re dealing with, and you know that now. And so, you simply see Dex less and less, until you’re on the verge of ghosting him altogether.
-
He wishes he didn’t understand.
He doesn’t empathize, not in the traditional sense. He doesn’t feel things the same way you do. But he gets it. He understands, even though he doesn’t want to.
He knows you know, and he knows you’re afraid. Afraid of him. He had bugged your phone for exactly this reason. He hadn’t expected for you to recover your old email and password, thereby regaining a good chunk of memories. Even if you couldn’t truly recall them, the evidence was right there in front of you, painting you a picture, telling you a story.
And now you knew his story was a fictional one.
As he stands outside your apartment, he knows he has a decision to make. He’s replayed the scene in his head a million times. He’ll go in, knock you out, and bring you back to his place, where you will stay indefinitely. But he’s almost afraid to go in. He’s afraid he’ll snap, that he won’t be able to contain himself.
He’s afraid he might hurt you.
And he knows if he does, he won’t be able to come back from it.
He’s on the verge of tears as he stands outside your window, filled with anger and resentment. Pain. Why did you have to ruin things? Why couldn’t you stay with him in his fantasy for just a little longer? Why couldn’t you just love him the way he loved you?
You never did. You never noticed him, not until he made you notice him.
You were angelic the night you had sex. You were a shaking, crying, whimpering mess. When he told you he loved you, you said it back. It was everything he had hoped for.
As he stands outside your apartment, he knows he has a decision to make.
He can either go in and alter the course of your life forever, or turn around and go home. He clamps his eyes shut, taking slow breaths in and out.
He remembers that night at the diner, when he gave you a hot chocolate. An opportunity for a give and take. Not an act of pity. Not even empathy, as he was taught. An act of affection, if he was even remotely capable of giving that to you.
You were someone he wanted to keep safe, someone he wanted to protect.
Even if it was from himself.
He takes another deep breath. He opens his eyes.
The walk home is a long one.
